


Concerning the Wine which was Spilt at the Feast of St. Ignatius, and How Arthur Came to Spend a Night in the Wood, and of the Gift of the Richest Mantle That Ever was Seen in That Court

by Martha



Category: Arthurian Legend
Genre: Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:havocthecat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-08
Updated: 2011-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 13:59:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martha/pseuds/Martha





	Concerning the Wine which was Spilt at the Feast of St. Ignatius, and How Arthur Came to Spend a Night in the Wood, and of the Gift of the Richest Mantle That Ever was Seen in That Court

There were two lions in the great hall, pacing in their gilded cages, snarling and unhappy at the change in routine. Normally by this time of day they had already fed on yearling calf and were dozing in the man-made caves in the king's wild animal park while peacocks screamed at the dusk. But this was St. Ignatius' feast day, and the lions were present in memory of that good man's lamentable end in the Roman games. Arthur seriously suspected, however, that a lifetime of generous feedings had left his own lions too fat and lazy to devour anyone, sinner or saint.

Tender-hearted Sir Gawaine had been slipping the beasts tidbits from his plate, quail livers and deer tongue, so that when Sir Kay the Seneschal sidled near the cages, one lion reached out a huge paw, hoping for another treat. Kay would later claim he had not been frightened, just concerned about tearing his rich clothes. However it was, he jerked from the cage with a squawk and smashed his hip against the feast table. Wine goblets tottered. Arthur managed to save his from spilling completely, but a few droplets sprayed across the white board. Although it was the color of blood, the wine was light and sweet, and absorbed rapidly. Arthur waved Kay on, shook his head at the servant who bustled forward to clean the spill, and as the conversation rose again he looked at the spray more carefully.

Each drop of wine had stained the cloth in the shape of a crescent moon.

Arthur glanced up. At his right side, Guenever and Lancelot were gossiping about Sir Balin's and Sir Balan's reputed antics in the bedroom and to his left, Gawaine was shooting dirty glances down the table at Kay and slipping an entire roast chicken through the bars to the offended lion. There was no one to notice as Arthur carefully laid his sleeve over the damning droplets.

When the moon rose high enough to be visible through the east-facing windows, Arthur rose without comment, took the guttering candle which stood closest to him upon the table, and left the banquet hall. He dismissed his servants and wrapped himself in a dark traveling cloak. Once he was sure he was alone, he lifted aside the pelts which filled a massive chest in the king's dressing room, found the latch set flush with the woodwork, and pulled open the hidden door to a passage leading between the castle's stone walls.

Lighting his way with the candle from the banquet table, he picked his steps carefully over rough timbers and down uneven stairways. He passed bursts of wine-fueled laughter silent as a ghost, and as he descended lower through the castle, the scent of perfumes and beeswax gave way to the oily reek of tallow and the ranker smell of sewage.

Eventually the stones under his feet turned to dirt, then sand. Arthur heard the faint sound of rushing water. His hounds knew when he passed beneath the kennel and bayed for him in the darkness. He splashed through standing water beneath the moat where the ceiling was so low he had to bow his head as he walked. The air was stagnant and warm. Stone walls gave way to dirt. His fingers brushed tree roots grasping deep in the earth, and a faint phosphorescence glimmered along the walls. The passage became more and more narrow until Arthur was forced to abandon his candle and crawl on his hands and knees. The walls and floor were spongy, rotting wood. The air was becoming cooler, taking on the clean, sharp smell of recently-fallen autumn leaves. Arthur pulled himself through a tangle of branches with the brown leaves still clinging to them, and emerged at last into a quiet glade.

The moon was on the verge of moving past the circle of bare tree tops, silver light shining through branches like outstretched fingers. Arthur heard the call of an owl. In the distance, one of the lions roared, evidently having been returned to the park after his ceremonial appearance for the feast. For the first time, Arthur thought he should have indicated that the feast should continue without him, but from the moment he had seen the wine, the courtesies of court had been forgotten.

There was no wind. Arthur removed his sword and laid it upon the ground, then sat with his back against a tree trunk, pulling his cloak around his shoulders. He should have dressed more warmly for a night spent on the ground. Eventually he began to wonder if he had imagined the shape of the wine drops at the feast. The cold moon was so bright it threw sharp, silver-edged shadows on the ground. Arthur watched them for a while, then dozed. When he awoke, his teeth chattering with the cold, he saw that every shadow on the ground was in the shape of the _kaunan_ rune, the torch.

Suddenly wide awake, Arthur snatched up his sword and leaped to his feet. The words of an ancient verse came to his lips. "The torch is known to every man above hell by its pale, bright flame," he chanted quietly. "It always burns where princes sit within."

The runes broke. The bright - limned shadows crashed as though a hurricane were tearing through the glade, though not a breath of wind touched Arthur's cheek. He clutched Excalibur tight. He was not afraid of his sister Morgan -- he was a king, and he was absolutely not afraid -- but he locked his jaw to keep from moaning aloud as the stars blurred overhead.

The majesty of her presence was like drowning in the ocean. She roared down upon him, nothing like the fat, gentle lions paraded for St. Ignatius day. She was as vast as the sky, an army no battlements would deter, every harm from which a knight's armor could not protect him. Damascus steel. Winter cold. The betrayal of a friend. It was no surprise, but Arthur was overwhelmed all the same.

His sword dropped. "Mercy, Lady." He fell to his knees and covered his head. "Mercy."

The weight on his heart and on his mind increased for appalling, unbearable moments. He was drowning under the wild, salty waves. Then she stepped out of the forest into the moonlit glade and said, "Oh, get up, Arthur. You've been away from the woods too long if you're afraid of _me_."

Arthur reached for Excalibur and sheathed it as he rose. He could not bring himself to look directly at Morgan yet, so he gazed over her shoulder as he spoke. An owl larger than a lady's lapdog sat on a branch, its huge round eyes blinking slowly in the moonlight. "You know, I thought you were probably around somewhere."

She gave a snort of laughter, but then said with some gentleness, "I'm always around, brother." She moved towards him, walking unhurriedly across the glade. Arthur was still watching the owl instead of Morgan. Then she was gone from his peripheral vision. His breath caught, but he forced himself to blink as slowly as the owl before he turned his head to look for her.

Morgan was now approaching from the opposite end of the glade. Arthur looked at her full on. Plain-featured, wrapped in a cloak lthat had been chosen for warmth. Then she was gone again. Arthur breathed slowly, calming himself, and turned. Morgan continued to walk at the same unhurried pace, although now she was approaching once more from beneath the branch where the owl sat, calm and undisturbed.

"And how goes the business of kingdom and court?" she asked. "It must be engaging indeed if you don't even miss your home."

"I am home, Morgan."

"Not quite," she answered. "But close." She reached out a nut-brown hand from under her cloak, fingers calloused, a scrim of dirt under her nails. Arthur refused to flinch from her, and the touch of her hand on his face made him gasp.

The darkness and the cold were gone. He was as free as the child he had once been with Morgan. Fey they both were, and he saw Morgan beside him as a bright gobbet of light, and he knew he was the same. Freedom made his heart sing, and he darted skyward. He had forgotten what it was to touch life directly. How small and flat was the world of men. All he could experience as one of them was an angle of light, a moment in time, the rough surface of a stone. From those meager building blocks his limited mind constructed the entire illusion of life.

With Morgan, Arthur no longer had to imagine the shape of existence. He was the world and the sky, his past and his present. Everything and nothing at all. He stared up at the moon until he became the moon staring down at Camelot, and in an instant of vertigo, he wrapped his human hand around Excalibur's pommel.

Everything stopped. The world tilted, became brittle and flat once more. He collapsed to his knees, groaning as he tried to breathe the cold night air. His lungs worked like bellows and his blood prickled in his veins. Morgan approached him from all sides of the glade at once, her dark hair whipping around her brow.

"Release the sword, brother, and come with me."

Arthur didn't let go. The steel was singing. "Nimue made me king with this."

Morgan's eyes narrowed. "The Damosel of the Lake made you a _man_."

Arthur nodded. "Yes," he said. Then, "I'm sorry, Morgan. Yes, she did."

"Your kingdom will come to nothing. You've seen it, Arthur."

And oh, by the holy blood, he had. He lowered his head, considering what he had just experienced darting skyward in the moonlit present, past and future one.

"Your queen will betray you with your first knight." Morgan was relentless. "The  
Round Table turns upon itself, and England fractures into warring kingdoms."

And she was right. Arthur had seen all of that, but outside of time, it had been only a fact of existence, like the shape of the coastline or the movement of the stars. But as a man again, years of strife and sorrow stretched before him, one cruel day at a time. The weight of that knowledge now bowed his shoulders. He dashed away tears. "Sister." His voice broke. "Why did you show me this?"

She reached for him, but this time he flinched away. She let her hand drop. "You've always known it would come to this, but in your years as a man, you've forgotten. Do you think I can bear to watch you suffer so?"

Arthur snorted, almost laughing through his tears. "Very considerate of you, Morgan. I feel so much better now."

"I'm not mocking you." Morgan knelt beside him. "Nimue gave you a great gift, and you've been a good man and a fine king, but your subjects are so small. They'll betray and abandon you, squander everything you've done."

Arthur sighed, the last few tears cold on his face. "And what would you have me do?"

"Come home with me, Arthur."

"But my kingdom," he said weakly. "My subjects."

"England may survive if you come away now. Your subjects -- will they really miss you so very much if you never return this night?"

And truthfully, Arthur was not entirely certain anymore, but Excalibur was still ringing in his hand, and his human heart was full to bursting with emotion. Anger and grief and regret, disappointment and jealousy. But beneath them all was a pang of sympathy for Lancelot and Guenever, such headstrong fools. No wonder he loved them both.

"I'm sorry, Morgan," Arthur said heavily.

"You're not serious," she replied after a stunned moment.

"Please leave me now."

"When did the priests of Wodin get their claws into you?" Morgan snapped. "For how long has bleeding to death on the fucking world tree held such an appeal?"

"I am king in this place, and I have the authority to banish you. Leave me before I do."

Her rage crashed like thunder, but she didn't defy him. She left, taking autumn with her. The owl who had sat watching over the glade rose with a silent sweep of wings and the moon and stars disappeared beyond leaden gray clouds. Sleet pattered down on brown forest leaves. He needed to get up and find shelter, or Morgan would have him despite his resolve to live, but he was too weak to stand. He curled his arms around his knees. He wept a little, because though he might be king, right now he was a cuckolded fool, and alone.

The cold leached into his bones. Ice formed in his hair, but underneath his scalp, his brain was burning. He fell at length into a dazed half-sleep, dreaming that owls with yellow eyes had blotted out the stars. He awoke when wings brushed his face.

"My lord!"

Strong hands caught and held him when he tried to rise.

"My lord, lie easy. I have you."

Arthur blinked heavily and stopped trying to get up. "So formal, Gawaine," he managed in a slurring voice. "I must be dying."

Gawaine groaned. "I ought to wring your neck like a banty rooster! You would have been dead by morning."

"I'd have been with Morgan by morning," he corrected, but he didn't know if Gawaine understood. He turned his head slowly towards the crackling warmth. Gawaine had brought live coals with him and built the fire now blazing nearby. Snowflakes fell from the leaden heavens to disappear above the flames. The entire glade was covered in snow, and Arthur lay with his head on Gawaine's thigh, both of them swaddled in Gawaine's fur cloak. "What are you doing here?"

"Right now? Trying to keep my fool of a king from dying of the cold."

Arthur laughed. It turned into a cough, and he twisted, Gawaine's strong hands on his shoulders. At last he lay panting with exhaustion. Gawaine brushed Arthur's wet hair off his forehead. "I meant," Arthur whispered, "How did you find me?"

"The Lady Nimue," Gawaine said unhappily. He had no love for the Fair Folk. "She arrived at Camelot after the feast and told me you had come here to meet Morgan."

Arthur nodded, glad that Nimue hadn't sent Lancelot for him. "Thank you."

Gawaine harrumphed. "You should never have been here in the first place." He paused. "That is, if you will forgive me speaking my mind."

"When have you ever done anything else?" Arthur laughed again, more carefully this time, and Gawaine petted his head like Arthur was one of his beloved hounds.

"Rest. We'll return to Camelot when you're strong enough."

Arthur didn't get any stronger, but when morning came, Gawaine lifted him up upon his gray charger and walked him gently and slowly back to the castle, where he was put to bed and spent days tossing in an uneasy delirium. At times he recognized Nimue at his bedside and felt a sense of dull shame, as if he had disappointed her. More often, he recognized Guenever and had enough self awareness to hope he was not talking out loud in his fever. Her eyes were always red, though she never dropped tears that he could see.

At length he was well enough to return to court. That same morning, Sir Kay informed him while he was still breakfasting that an emissary from Morgan le Fey had arrived nearly a week before, claiming to have an urgent message for the king's ears.

Arthur put down a bite of mackerel untasted and stared at Kay. "A messenger from Morgan? And he's been here a week?"

Kay drew himself up defensively. "A mere slip of the girl. She has been given adequate accommodations while your highness wasn't strong enough to receive visitors."

"And you made this decision yourself?"

"If I had done otherwise, my Lady Guenever would have had my head on a spike."

Arthur smiled to himself as he got to his feet. "Please inform Morgan's emissary that I will be glad to receive her now. Does the child have a name?"

"I presume her mother gave her one. That is, if she was born of human woman at all." Kay scowled darkly, and waved his hand in dubious acknowledgment of Arthur's "You will treat her with respect, seneschal!"

But Arthur had not reckoned with how weak he had been left by his illness. Glad that the king's passage to the throne room was empty of servants just now, he leaned against a stone wall to regain his composure and catch his breath. It would not do to meet an emissary of Morgan's while collapsed on his throne, wheezing for air.

Then Arthur raised his head. Someone else was in the passage after all, her slippered feet impossibly silent on the rushes.

"Nimue." Arthur felt his heart beating, the pulse in his throat as weighty as an iron chain around his neck. "I owe you my life."

Finer than any of the ladies of court, Nimue stopped beneath a window where a shaft of sunlight illuminated the jewels in her hair and in her gown. Her skin was alabaster and her eyes as blue as the bottomless lake she called home. Everything around her was slow and thick and beautiful, as though existence itself sighed in her presence, sleepy and safe as a babe in arms.

"Morgan misses you dreadfully, Arthur," Nimue said, not acknowledging Arthur's thanks. "So you must continue to choose the world of men, if that is what you desire."

"It is. I do. I made that choice a long time ago. You know that, Lady." And to prove it, he reached for Excalibur. However, in his weakness after the long illness, he had forgone the weight of the great blade after all, and was only carrying a light ceremonial sword. The ornamental gems around the pommel seemed cheap and gaudy against Nimue's finery. He closed his fist without touching the costume sword, and when he looked up again, Nimue had departed as silently as she had arrived.

Well, her message was clear, but Arthur hesitated all the same. Morgan's emissary had already been kept waiting far too long, but one didn't disregard the advice of the fey, no matter how inconvenient. In the end he returned for Excalibur, even though the weight of the fine scabbard and blade made his chest ache.

Much of the court was already present by the time Arthur came to the throne room. Arthur himself was starting to wish he had just stayed in bed, but he seated himself and accepted a cup of hot spiced wine in the hope it would restore some blood to his veins. Then he looked for Morgan's emissary.

Sir Kay had not exaggerated. She was more child than woman, slight and pale, her dark hair cropped close around her brow. She held her head up as she approached the throne, looking unimpressed by the glory of court. Her thin arms were wrapped around a colorful bundle that she clutched to her chest. Arthur looked to Kay to announce her, but his seneschal could only shrug. Arthur scowled at him, then turned to smile at the girl. "Welcome, Lady."

She stopped before the throne and looked up at him, her dark eyes unblinking. "Your sister sendeth you this mantle and desireth that ye should take this gift of her," she exclaimed in a high, piping voice. "And in what thing she hath offended you, she will amend it at your own pleasure." Then she shook out her bundle.

A gasp rose from the assembled court. The garment was magnificent. Stitched in gold thread were a parliament of owls, so lifelike Arthur would not have been surprised to see them take flight. The eyes of the owls were jewels, as were the stars in the night sky visible between the owls' outstretched wings. Arthur had to swallow twice before he found his voice. "Lady," he told the girl softly. "You bring a rare gift."

The knowledge that Morgan had forgiven him made his heart twist a little in his chest. Though it broke every stricture of courtly etiquette, Arthur rose to take the mantle. He was aware of Gawaine on one side and Lancelot on the other also rising hastily. Neither of them trusted Morgan or her messengers, and Arthur's recent illness had hardly served to increase their regard, but Arthur could not be frightened of this child.

But then as he reached for the mantle, he realized Excalibur was ringing against his thigh.

The disappointment stung like sleet falling from the winter sky. "Lady," he said softly, letting his hand drop without touching the mantle. "Humor a king. I have a wish to see this fine cloak wrapped around your own shoulders first."

"Sir." The girl's dark eyes darted up. "It will not beseem me to wear a king's garment."

Angry as he was, Arthur kept his voice level and low as he answered her in the same formal tongue. "By my head, ye _shall_ wear it or it come on my back, or any man's that here is."

Lancelot was the first to realize what Arthur suspected. Arthur heard him roar with anger, and he raised a hand to stop Lancelot from coming closer. "Child," Arthur said. "Put on Morgan's cloak."

The girl regarded him steadily, her face expressionless. He could hear Guenever asking frightened questions behind him. Then with a slight, sardonic smile, Morgan's emissary suddenly twitched the mantle around and laid it upon her own shoulders.

She didn't flinch as the blisters roared down both her forearms like a wildfire. A stench of sulfur filled the air. She swayed on her feet only when more blisters swelled and burst across her chest, leaving ragged strips of tissue hanging over the neckline of her simple garments. Held back no longer, Lancelot was at Arthur's side, trying to pull him back. "You must come away, my lord!"

Arthur didn't allow himself to be moved. The only tribute he could pay now to the fierceness of Morgan's regard was to stay and watch what she was willing to do. Most of the court didn't realize what was happening until the girl's hair burst into flame, a sudden, shockingly bright halo. Screams and cries filled the throne room, but Arthur heard little of them. It seemed to him that he and the child wearing the poisoned cloak were locked in their own world. Arthur watched her dark eyes, murmuring the only comfort he knew, bleak as it was. "The torch is known to all men, burning brightest where princes sit within."

He had no idea if she heard him. Her face blackened and her eyelashes burned. When her legs gave out Arthur fell to his knees as well, and when she collapsed to the floor, a smoldering, reeking husk, Arthur would have fallen too, save for the hands that lifted him up and bore him away. He craned his head back as he was carried from the throne room. An irregular gobbet of light appeared to rise from the corpse, darting towards the windows.

He wasn't taken far, only to the anteroom behind the throne, where he was lowered gently onto a bench. He blinked his eyes, but the stench of burnt flesh in his hair and on his clothes made him choke, so he struggled to sit up again, pushing feebly at his robe, trying to get it off his shoulders.

"Here, Arthur. I'll help you. I've got it." Queen Guenever's gentle hands pushed his clumsy fingers away, deftly unfastening the heavy garments one at a time and allowing them to drop. Someone else supported Arthur while she worked. Arthur turned his head and found Lancelot sitting behind him and bearing his weight so he wouldn't fall.

"I will lead an army of knights into Morgan's wood," Lancelot growled. "We will worry her to the ground and serve her as she would have served you, my lord. By God, her pyre will be visible from the coast of Ireland."

"Hush now, my good and loyal knight." Arthur patted the side of Lancelot's face. His fingers were still trembling. "You will not."

"Arthur." Guenever's voice shook. "She meant for you to die."

Arthur bowed his head for a moment before he could meet Guenever's eyes. His human queen, whose love was not fierce enough even to keep her from betraying him, and he felt such tenderness that he leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. "Aye," he said. "She wanted me to bide with her." And buoyed by the same fragile emotion, he turned his head, cupped Lancelot's jaw, and tenderly kissed his first knight, too.


End file.
